Friday, July 11, 2008

Obama is the New...

Bush (43):
Wall Street Journal editorial board, 7/2/08.
L. Whitey Johnson, 7/10/08.

Kerry:
Steve Schmidt, 6/20/08.
Grover Norquist, 6/26/08.
Frank Newport, 5/7/08.
Hillary Clinton, 4/14/08.

Gore:
Hillary Clinton, 4/14/08.
Hugh Hewitt, 3/30/08.

(Bill) Clinton:
Paul Krugman, 6/30/08.
Abe Greenwald, 1/15/08.
Ron Fournier, 12/18/07.

Dole:
Mark Halperin, 2/28/08.

George H. W. Bush:
David Brooks, 5/19/08.
New York Sun editorial board, 4/18/08
YouTube, 4/6/08:



Dukakis:
Susan Estrich, 5/12/08.
Nate Silver, 7/10/08.

Mondale:
Ronald Kessler, 2/27/08.
Dan McLaughlin, 5/30/07.

Reagan:
Andrew Sullivan, 7/24/07.
Darrell M. West, 7/8/08.
Diane Winston, 6/27/08.
David Paul Kuhn, 7/24/07.
E.J. Dionne, 2/29/08
George F. Will, 5/8/08.
Barack Obama, 1/16/08.

Carter:
John McCain, 6/21/08.
Dinesh D'Souza, 6/18/08.
Matthew Continetti, 5/5/08.
Kurt Anderson, 6/16/08.

Ford:
Dennis Byrne, 1/4/07.

Nixon:
Karl Rove, 7/10/08.
James Kirchick, 7/2/07.
John Pitney, 3/4/08.

McGovern:
John Judis, 4/23/08.
Jeralyn, 2/16/08.
New York Sun editorial board, 5/9/08.

Humphrey:
Dr. Violet Socks, 6/5/08.

Johnson:
Rush Limbaugh, 6/10/08.
Jeffrey Lord, 6/10/08.
Michael Crowley, 6/5/08:



Goldwater:
Alfred Regnery, 2/25/08.

Kennedy:
Caroline Kennedy, 1/27/08.
Ted Sorensen, 7/23/07.
William Rees-Mogg, 2/18/08.
Justin Raimondo, 8/3/07.
E.J. Dionne, 4/22/08.

Eisenhower:
Susan Eisenhower, 2/2/08.
Alan W. Dowd, 6/3/08.

Stevenson:
George F. Will, 4/15/08.
Steve Clemons, 11/4/07.
David Greenberg, 11/16/07.
E.J. Dionne, 4/22/08.

Truman:
New York Sun editorial board, 7/2/08.
Chicago Sun-Times, 5/13/07.

Dewey:
East Hartford Gazette, 6/25/08
Voters of New Hampshire, 1/8/08.

-- Nate Silver at 7:00 AM  

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100 comments

Rasmus said...

lol.
But actually the Dole article didn´t say he was the new Dole. It just said that Dole closed every speech with "I ask for your vote" and that OBama did not yet really ask for the votes of Clinton voters.

July 11, 2008 6:04 AM  
Anonymous said...

Whitey??? Johnson -- is this race baiting?

July 11, 2008 6:04 AM  
Anonymous said...

The link is to column by LARRY C. JOHNSON -- isn't it?

July 11, 2008 6:21 AM  
nkpolitics said...

Barack Obama + John McCain = Bob Dole.
Kansas roots + Old Age/War Hero

July 11, 2008 6:22 AM  
Anonymous said...

All in all, a sad commentary on the state of our political punditry.

July 11, 2008 6:24 AM  
Shadow said...

Ha. This goes from a serious of intended individual burns to revealing very positive fact about Obama; he is so middle of the road in America that he has been compared to all of our previous Presidents and Presidential nominees of the last thirty-plus years.

July 11, 2008 6:51 AM  
Anonymous said...

Good list, although you forgot McCain comparing him to William Jennings Bryan.

July 11, 2008 6:57 AM  
Stephen C. Rose said...

Add in Lincoln and FDR.

July 11, 2008 7:00 AM  
Light said...

@ shadow -

If that were true, someone would have remembered to compare him to Gore or Perot, who both being relatively recent candidates, ought to have leaped to people's minds when looking for comparisons.

In fact, however, most of the comparisons to candidates from long ago are made to highlight particular aspects of Obama's strategy or appeal, rather than anything to do with his policies. For example, the comparisons to Dewey (Republican candidate in 1944 and 1948) were drawn to imply that the current invincibility around Obama won't hold up on election day (the old "Dewey Defeats Truman" joke) and at least one of the comparisons to Nixon was made solely to discuss the two men's disgusting attempts to win votes in the South (Nixon by stoking white fear of blacks, and Obama allegedly by stoking Southern fear of homosexuals).

Sadly, I can't access the article about Goldwater, but I'm sure that comparison was an attempt to say that Obama will burn out completely on election day and in the electoral college, rather than to say that Obama and Goldwater's politics are remotely comparable. Goldwater was perhaps the most extreme major-party candidate politically (in terms of how far from the mainstream he was)* that this country has ever nominated. Goldwater was so conservative** that if his politics could be reasonably compared to Obama's, McCain would win this election in a walk because all the liberals and die-hard Democrats would have to vote for him.

Point being, Obama is absolutely not "so middle of the road in America that he has been compared to all of our previous Presidents and Presidential nominees of the last thirty-plus years." What he might be is so shrewd that he's learned something from all of them and so dangerous as a candidate (I mean in the sense of having immense power to either radically transform American politics with a decisive win or to radically disappoint and lose in a blow-out) that his strengths, flaws, and weaknesses incorporate aspects of all of those candidates.

Obama is not mainstream by a long-shot, and don't fool yourself into thinking that the real moderates and independents in this country think so. They may end up voting for him, but if they do, they will have swallowed the fact that he's a liberal.

*Actually, come to think of it, some conservatives would make this comparison: that Obama is so far from the mainstream, he can only be compared to Goldwater (although the easier comparison here is to McGovern).
**When conservatives get tired of hearing that every up-and-coming Republican star is the new Reagan, they like to point out that the real gold standard was always Goldwater, and "Oh, Barry, why did you leave us?"

July 11, 2008 7:09 AM  
Anonymous said...

Brilliant post.

July 11, 2008 7:25 AM  
Anonymous said...

To be fair, George Will also wrote a column in the past 6 to 8 weeks saying Obama might be the Democrats' Reagan.

July 11, 2008 7:26 AM  
Eric said...

And in the last week or so, McCain has been calling Obama the most protectionist politician since Herbert Hoover. So there's one more for the list.

July 11, 2008 7:39 AM  
Frank from Germany said...

Two more JFKs to the list

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,564706,00.html

http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/uswahl/us-politiker_aid_264120.html

July 11, 2008 7:44 AM  
Anonymous said...

eric- you can say that someone is the most x since y. It doesn't make them 'the new y'.

July 11, 2008 7:45 AM  
SarahLawrenceScott said...

Ironically, it's the fact that he's different that's generating all the comparisons. I don't mean that with the "different kind of politics" connotation; I mean his background, strengths, weaknesses, strategy--pundits are struggling to find the appropriate box to put him in, or in the cases of opponents, trying to put him in an unfavorable box before he "defines" himself.

It hasn't worked, and it's too late. No one's going to think of Obama as the new anyone; like him or hate him, he's going to